Williamsburg, NY – One day after a 16 year old boy was arrested for groping a Chasidic boy in Williamsburg as he waited for a bus comes word that the teen had been stalking his prey for several days, prompting child safety advocates to urge greater education and awareness of sexual abuse in the Jewish community.
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According to court records reported in The NY Daily News, Brian Montes told police that he had “been following (the child) for days” and that he planned to take the boy home and molest him. Montes, who was held on $30,000 bail, was charged with several counts including attempted luring of a child.
Watching a victim carefully before taking action is common behavior for sexual predators according to Rabbi Yakov Horowitz, director of Project Y.E.S.
“Just like a cat burglar goes to a neighborhood and looks at houses to see which one is safe to burglarize, predators look at children to see which ones are likely targets,” Rabbi Horowitz told VIN News.
“While I don’t know the particulars of this case and certainly can’t comment on it, historically predators looks for children who lack a heightened level of awareness or those who are not closely supervised. Involved parents who supervise their children carefully are like a burglar alarm for predators and they will choose another target.”
The best defense against sexual abuse in children is a good offense, noted Rabbi Horowitz, and Project Y.E.S.’s child safety book, Let’s Stay Safe, has sold 26,000 copies. According to Rabbi Horowitz, research shows that a child who has had even a single conversation about preventing sexual abuse is far less likely to fall victim to a predator.
Until recently, the Orthodox Jewish community has shied away from the thorny topic of sexual abuse.
“Parents, especially in sheltered communities, are often reluctant to teach their children about abuse prevention, feeling that it is inappropriate, but that is absolutely not the case,” said Rabbi Horowitz. “In fact, it is the ultimate in tzniyus, teaching children about their privacy and their right to personal space. Education is effective and parents themselves have to be educated about how to have these conversations.”
Let’s Stay Safe was recently translated into Hebrew in an effort to reach an even wider audience and recent efforts to reach out the Chasidic community have been successful. According to Rabbi Horowitz, the Yiddish version of Let’s Stay Safe, titled Zei Gezunt , was approved by both the Satmar kehilla in Kiryas Joel and the Skverer kehilla and has sold 5,000 copies since its release one year ago.
“Kiryas Joel gave out over 1,000 copies last summer and parents found it extremely helpful,” reported Rabbi Horowitz who noted that he is currently working with other Chasidic communities in an effort to further spread awareness of sexual abuse in children.
Zvi Gluck, director of Amudim which deals with crises in the Jewish community, said that his organization fields 17 calls each month from sexual abuse victims, most of whom are adults who were abused as children.
“We understand that there are those communities that prefer to remain sheltered and feel that a certain education might not be appropriate but we need them to realize that this is literally life and death,” said Gluck. “The sheltering of our children is what leads us to dealing with adult victims in their 20’s and 30’s who are only now getting help after living lives of darkness. We need to stop this cycle and educate our children and our communities to the dangers that lurk. We have an obligation to educate and protect the children of Hashem by whatever means necessary.”
According to Meyer Seewald, founder of Jewish Community Watch, sexual abuse rates in children are alarmingly high.
“In the non-Jewish world, one out of every three or four girls and one out of every five or six boys are abused before they turn 18,” said Seewald. “This is the most underreported crime there is because of the stigma and in our community, there is no education and no one is talking about this. We don’t have the luxury of pretending that this doesn’t exist.”
Jewish Community Watch has held a series of events on sexual abuse awareness in recent months in Cleveland, Miami Beach, Los Angeles and Israel, with over 800 people attending a September event in Brooklyn. An event is scheduled for this Sunday in Monsey, with future planned locations including Chicago, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Montreal.
“We are going to keep on going,” said Seewald. “People talking about this is the biggest thing, bringing this to the surface, educating people with facts. Abusers have to know that the community won’t be silent anymore.”
There is also another terrific book on the market called “Talking About Private Places”. It is very child friendly and the context and illustrations are fantastic. It is published by Feldheim. Highly recommended
Boruch Hashem that it was a Goy who did it this time in Williamsburg and not one of the boys Yeshiva Rebbe’s, which are the usual perpetrators of such crimes.
If it was the usual, the so called “frum” (looking) perpetrators, it would be swept under the rug and denied that it ever happened.
This boy is very lucky that it was goy, this time, (for a change), for all of the rest of such cases, 99% of time, are hushed up and never prosecuted, to protect the “frum” molesters by the so called “ra-bunim”, who seek to protect their own, even if the victims are also their own.
This happened in front of my house and this boy is my neighbor. He comes from an extremely sheltered home. The part of the creep ‘following him for days’ makes absolultely no sense, because there had been no cheder for 10 days, plus this boy’s usual bus time is 7:20. So he couldnt have been stalking him. This was 2 hours later than his normal bus time bc it was on Isru Chag.. this creep probably cant distinguish between different boys. It is crazy scary however htat he did have evil intent. wow. The poor kid! He doesnt wait alone for the bus anymore now, one of his brothers is always there. This is so scary.